As we all know the day to day office expenditure that lawyers incur is something we cannot do without unfortunately, a necessary evil so to speak. The constant review process of these costs, as much as it practically can be, is always routinely monitored with a view to keeping them down.
There are generally two ways you can incur office expenditure, one being the month on month outgoing payments in areas like stationery, print, telecoms and the other being the one off payments that you will incur once a year at a renewal point i.e. office insurance, business rates, PII and the subject of this particular article, The DX.
The Document Exchange Service, or The DX, is a postal alternative to the Royal Mail. It is subject to a renewal once a year whereby an upfront payment is required to use the service. The difference between The DX and The Royal Mail is that, although a very similar service, it should cost significantly less to use.
Having worked in cost reduction for a number of years and reviewed many accounts, it's clear that businesses never quite understand how DX arrive at the renewal charges. It's these renewal charges that arrive on the Partners’ desks two weeks before the renewal is due and under strict terms and conditions that state unless the firm places the account in review within seven days of receiving the revised charges, those same new charges will be applied.
How often do we receive correspondence that we put to one side, with the best intention of dealing with it later that day? Later that day becomes a couple of weeks later, unfortunately then it's too late. At the point a firm receives the renewal is the very time to advise The DX that it's be placed in review.
Some of the renewal notices we are seeing are almost comparative to using the Royal Mail, which is a superior service. The DX is a good alternative to Royal Mail, but only if the pricing is set correctly.
When The DX process renewal charges for the new annual subscription it is based on the previous years usage. They will ask a client to monitor the account internally for at least two weeks of the year and using a number of internal monitoring periods they undertake periodically through the same year, they annualise the volumes and arrive at the renewal charges.
Whilst understandably The DX cannot monitor every single piece of mail that the client sends out, it's this basic monitoring of the accounts that raises the issue of how accurate the renewal terms are when sent out to the client.
So whilst there are a number of factors that can determine the volume of post being sent via The DX e.g. reductions in staff or change in work types, at renewal time charges should be reviewed to ensure your practice is getting value from the service.
If you think any of the above relates to your firm and you would like a review of your account contact the team at CostController on either 0845 279 7667 or info@cost-controller.co.uk.
